The blackboard has long been the collaborative tool used to convey information to students in an educational environment. For many years, the act of placing chalk on slate has been a highly effective and inexpensive method for teachers to provide daily lessons to students from kindergarten through graduate schools. However, with the rapid growth of information technology, the amount of information teachers convey to students has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, the blackboard is limited by how quickly the teacher can write the lesson on the blackboard and by how quickly the students can copy the information provided by the teacher. As the amount of information the teacher must teach increases, the faster the teacher and students must write. Unfortunately, if the students are unable to copy the material from the blackboard in a timely fashion, there is a risk of information loss.
One solution to insure that students receive all of the information taught by the teacher on a given day was the “electronic whiteboard.” The electronic whiteboard provided the instructor with the option of generating a copy of everything he or she wrote on the whiteboard before it was erased. The electronic whiteboard allowed instructors to electronically scan the whiteboard and produce an exact copy of the information on the whiteboard before he or she erased the lesson from the whiteboard. At the end of class, the instructor could make photocopies of outputs from the electronic whiteboard and distribute them to the students. The electronic whiteboard made the task of taking notes easier for students, in that the printed output of the contents written on the whiteboard provided the students with a “backup” for their note taking. If any student failed to completely copy the instructor's notes from the whiteboard, the student could simply refer to the printed output to fill in any missing notes. Not only did this insure that the students had a complete copy of the instructor's class notes, but it also reduced interruptions to the lecture, because fewer students had to ask the instructor to repeat material that the students failed to note. The reduction in classroom interruption during the instructor's class lecture allowed the instructors to present more material to the students, thereby increasing their knowledge base.
The electronic whiteboard, however, has several drawbacks. First, because the electronic whiteboard provides a printed copy of the content written on the whiteboard, it is expensive. Secondly, only information physically written by the instructor on the whiteboard may be outputted in printed form. There is no way for the instructor to introduce electronic information, such as Web page content, images, or interactive material to the class through the electronic whiteboard. If an instructor wanted to take advantage of digital information on the Internet, the instructor would have to provide that information in a separate format, which increased the amount of paper that a student received and, therefore, increased the likelihood of information loss.
Another disadvantage of the electronic whiteboard is that although the electronic whiteboard supports multiple users in that multiple students may write on the board at one time, there is no way to distinguish which student wrote what notes when the copy of the whiteboard is printed out. Still another disadvantage of the electronic whiteboard is that the instructor and students cannot share digital data with one another. The electronic whiteboard cannot display or process digital information from outside sources, such as the Internet and the like. Yet another disadvantage of the electronic whiteboard is that the instructor and students have to be in the same physical location due to the fact that the information written on the electronic whiteboard cannot be shared over a distributed network.
A possible solution to the electronic whiteboard was proposed by International Business Machines, Inc., through a product called the IBM Blueboard (hereinafter IBM Blueboard), which allows multiple users at different locations to interact in a collaborative manner. The IBM Blueboard allows a small number of people to interact with the display device to retrieve information, sketch ideas, and share information. The display is covered by a resistive touch screen film, which allows users to input information by touching the display, thereby eliminating the need for a keyboard or a mouse. Users “register” themselves during a session by swiping an identification card through a card reader attached to the IBM Blueboard. The act of swiping the identification card causes the system to display a personal icon, which is representative of the user in a portion of the display. The personal icon, in addition to identifying the registered user, serves several functions. First the personal icon is a rapid access point to the user's personal content. The user sets up their personal content such as calendars, documents, and a web address for a home page. Once the user registers with the system, the home page is linked to their personal icon so that the home page is displayed by touching the user's personal icon.
Second, the personal icon is also a mechanism for registered users to share information through the IBM Blueboard. If one user is working on a document or viewing a particularly interesting Web page, the user may share the document or Web page with any other registered user by using a drag and drop operation to drag content from the document or Web page to the personal icon of the intended recipient where the content is dropped. By effectuating a drag and drop operation, a copy of the content in the document or Web page is deposited on the recipient's home page. When the user logs out of the IBM Blueboard, the copy of the content on the recipient's home page is e-mailed to the recipient.
Another feature of the IBM Blueboard is that multiple Blueboards may be linked together through a distributed network. This allows multiple users at geographically remote locations to conduct meetings and share information. However, there are several drawbacks with the IBM Blueboard. First, although the IBM Blueboard allows multiple users to input data simultaneously, the users can only operate on one document at a time. Secondly, when a registered user takes control of the IBM Blueboard by being the “active” user, only content from his or her home page may be displayed. Unfortunately, allowing only the content of the active user to be presented on the display coupled with limiting the number of documents that can be accessed at the same time does not present the necessary collaborative environment needed for educational purposes.
Thus, there is a general need in the art for a system that allows users to share information with other users in such a manner to facilitate collaborative learning. More particularly, there is a need in the art for a system and method to allow students to share digital information in a collaborative, classroom environment to enhance the classroom experience.